


Tolkien 30 Day Songfic Challenge

by electroniccollectiondonut



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Gen, Gore, Inspired by Music, Songfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-15 02:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20858735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electroniccollectiondonut/pseuds/electroniccollectiondonut
Summary: SerenLyall (star-vault-ofthe-heavens on Tumblr) came up with a 30 day Tolkien songfic challenge. I decided to give it a go.I'm using this challenge as a way to explore my limits as a writer, so a lot of this is probably going to be things I don't often write.





	1. Top Notch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elrond and Elros discuss their choice.

Elrond and Elros sat on a balcony in Mithlond, watching a storm swirl slowly into being on the horizon. It wasn’t the same as Himring, where everyone was always wrapped in furs, or the war camps, where none dared go unarmed. It wasn’t home. But Maedhros was dead and Maglor was vanished and Beleriand was gone beneath the sea. They couldn’t go home.

They sat in silence for a moment longer, then Elros spoke. “No matter what we do, one of us is going to die,” he said, finally broaching the topic they’d been dancing around for days.

Elrond sighed, nearly inaudible. “I know.”

Elros, perched on the balcony railing, kicked his feet and swayed side to side with the wind. “I think I’m going follow grandmother, become mortal.”

Elrond, feet firmly planted on the floor and forearms braced on the railing beside Elros, dropped his head to one side to look up at his brother. “I’m not,” he admitted softly. “There’s still so much that has to be done in Middle-earth, and I want to be around to see it all happen.”

Elros cracked a smile at that, though it was bittersweet. “And knowing you, you’ll be in the thick of things the entire time.”

Elrond laughed. “Oh, no, I’m certain that you’ve gotten us confused. You are the one to be always involved in everything. I stop to think and then come save you from the trouble you’ve made!” Elros joined in the laughter, careful not to overbalance and fall.

When it grew quiet, there was another measure of silence.

“I’ll miss you,” Elros said at last, ever one to be straightforward with difficult topics.

“I’d say I’d come visit, but I don’t think I will,” Elrond whispered, just loud enough to be heard over the wind. He spoke of Numenor, of course. So many Men were sailing to their new island, and Elros surely would be no different once he joined them in their fate.

“Even so, I’ll love you always.”

“And I you. Remember that when you’ve grown old and grey, would you?”

“Of course.”


	2. Broken Crown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finarfin didn't really want to be king.

Arafinwe had never wanted to be king. He hadn't even thought it was an option; he was fifteenth in line. He wore the crown anyway, and wore it well.

He directed terrified people through darkness, leading them away from a burning harbor where the smell of blood was so thick in the air it was almost nauseating. Leading them away from his children and their own, splitting the Noldor ever further. Earwen stayed, to help rebuild after the massacre.

He commissioned a memorial and begged names from Nienna and had them inscribed on the base, more each day.

(Feanaro’s name was not on the public memorial, but Arafinwe stood with Nerdanel as she carved it into a statue in the Royal Garden, for only the two of them to know about.)

When the Moon rose and banished the darkness, he watched his people’s faces turn upward with a hope that had nearly been destroyed. People began to be reembodied, and their names on the memorial were plastered over and replaced with a different name. They brought news from Beleriand, and he listened to each account with hope that quickly turned to horror.

His children were safe.

(Elenwe was dead.)

Nolofinwe and Makalaure were both vying for the kingship east of the sea.

(Maitimo was kidnapped, down to one hand and half the beauty he was named for.)

His children had dropped neatly out of the narrative, but they were still safe.

(His sons were dead, but he knew that already, had felt it across all the miles and collapsed to his knees in the middle of a corridor and wept.)

Makalaure and Maitimo and Artanis were the last ones standing.

(He was safe in a palace too far away to help.)

Eonwe stood before his throne, a request for supplies and warriors on his lips—a tactful way of saying the Valar had decided that there was to be another war and they couldn’t keep out of it this time. The Vanyar were not warriors, they were perhaps the most peaceful of all. They went anyway, with a blessing from Indis and ships acquired properly. Arafinwe couldn’t sit safe any longer when only three of his family were left.

(He couldn't shake the feeling that they could have been saved if he'd been a little braver, if he'd tried a little harder, if he'd made the Valar care a little more.)

(He didn't get a chance to apologise to Artanis before Eonwe was ushering them back to the ships, and he'd begun to feel as though the Valar were the ones who were really in charge, letting him play king like a child in a paper crown.)


	3. All Along the Watchtower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ar-Pharazon is unrepentant.

Dagor Dagorath drew near. Ar-Pharazon could tell by the way his spirit and those of his men began to grow corporeal, rebuilding bodies that had gone far too many centuries unused. He could tell by the way the masses of earth on top of his army shifted, forming a way out.

They couldn't entirely leave their hill, not yet, but Ar-Pharazon stood, seeing the sky for the first time in millennia and listening to wind howl through hundreds of thousands of half-solid soldiers, and knew it wouldn't be long. He would lead his army in the service of Morgoth, and when their Lord inevitably won, the Valar would pay for their insolence.

Hours passed, and his army waited in neat ranks as rain passed through drawn blades. Ar-Pharazon heard a rider approaching and tasted ozone as lightning cracked nearby. Sheets of rain hit the army full on, drenching them through to the skin, and Ar-Pharazon smirked.

The Battle was come.


	4. Speed the Collapse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Herenyanel looks the other way (and then she doesn't.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who haven't read much of my work, Herenyanel is my version of Caranthir's canon wife.
> 
> CHAPTER WARNINGS
> 
> -Major Character Death
> 
> -Graphic Depictions of Violence
> 
> And when I say graphic, I mean graphic. If you don't want to read that, skip from "The Man was safe." to "(Herenyanel did not..."

Herenyanel remembered being hungry at Mithrim, lightheaded and nauseous even as she walked imperfect lines of ragged tents, doing what she could to ease the terror the dark wrought.

She remembered standing on the outskirts of the camp with a hunting party, slicing a hunk of meat into manageable chunks and cooking some down into an unsatisfying stew to be sure it was safe to eat. She didn’t ask what it was, just choked down a bowl and clapped a hand over her mouth when she gagged. It was not safe to eat. The amount of food in the camp remained negligible.

She kept giving her rations to the children anyway, and pretended not to see when her husband borrowed from others’ plates to see her fed.

(She survived Mithrim.)

Herenyanel remembered a blade in her hand at Doriath, and another in her side. She slashed methodically through those who stepped into the path of her sword, taking the upper ground at the top of a stairway in order to dispatch the three still pursuing her.

She remembered feeling her marriage bond tremble and then shatter, doubling over in agony and accidentally pushing the little knife deeper into her body. Blood dripped down the thick fabric of her leggings and under her greaves and she backed into a room to do something about it. She stood with her back to a corner and shucked off hardened leather armor and tore her heavy shirt into strips to bandage the stab wound.

She remembered two pairs of unearthly green eyes meeting hers, silver-haired twins screaming for help as a group of Celegorm’s people entered from another door. One of the warriors pulled her arm around his shoulders and began the walk back to their camp.

She closed her eyes and let the warrior take her weight and ignored the twins’ cries.

(She survived Doriath.)

Herenyanel remembered running. Away from her own darkness and then from the water encroaching on even the highest mountains of Beleriand. Eventually, she ran to the city of her closest remaining kin. She looked a mess, she was sure, and it was the middle of the night, but the guards let her in. She’d heard that Ost-in-Edhil was a city of second chances, and it seemed that it was true.

She remembered acquiring a little house near the edge of the city. She established an herbalist’s stall in the weekly market and made enough to live quietly and comfortably. She befriended a dwarf woman called Mhaida who was often in the city from Khazad-dum. Annatar arrived, and she dismissed the nervous feeling his presence caused.

She remembered the ground shaking and fire eating away the rubble. She ran, ducking falling beams. The city’s wall was close, she was nearly safe. Mhaida, legs too short to carry her quickly enough, reaching out to her for help.

She pretended she hadn’t picked up enough Khuzdul to know what her friend was saying and kept running.

(She survived Eregion.)

Thrice fortunate, her name meant, given by a mother whose Foresight could not predict the circumstances around her daughter’s fortune. Herenyanel remembered the three tragedies she’d already survived, and what each had cost her. She had been fortunate, yes, but others had not.

She signed the recruitment papers with a false name and took her place in the march on Mordor. She didn’t expect to live long enough for her little lie to be found out. They arrived, and she fought, and she watched a Man surrounded by axe-wielding orcs and stepped in beside him.

The Man was safe. She reminded herself, as her sword bent and broke and her blood began to spill, that she’d saved at least one life today. He’d run when she’d told him to, leaving her to face the last two orcs alone. And it was hardly as though she’d never seen her own blood before. Usually, though, it was less than this. She’d taken her fair share of injuries, of course, but the sensation of an axe going through the armor and skin and muscle and bone of her torso, slicing her body into halves, was decidedly odd while it lasted.

And then there was a bare instant of agony, a detached part of her mind examining the flow of hot blood and writhing silver organs from her waist before all her senses went dark.

(Herenyanel did not survive the Last Alliance.

One could only look the other way so many times before there were no other ways to look.)


	5. Where Are We Going From Here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elenwe drowns.

Elenwe had never liked the cold, and crossing the Helcaraxe certainly hadn’t helped matters. She pressed closer to Turukano, holding Itarille tighter. They wouldn’t freeze, not quite, but she had to wonder if she’d ever be warm again. Beleriand had better be downright  _ tropical _ , damn it all.

They slept in shifts, and when she woke, she encouraged Itarille’s talk and minded Turukano so that he wouldn’t stop shivering in his sleep. At first, she recalled, they hadn’t known it could be an issue. They had all slept at that first stop, huddled together in too thin clothes. A couple, their adolescent son pressed close between them, had stilled. No one had noticed until it was time to start moving again and they- wouldn’t. It didn’t take long to discover that when someone stopped shivering, they would be in Namo’s Halls in short order. They had slept in shifts ever since.

It was decided that it was time to keep moving, and Elenwe moved toward the back of their company. The royal family spread out along the ever shortening line whenever they marched, keeping tabs on everything. Elenwe offered a tiny smile to a young man who carried his infant sister bundled close in his coat and fell into step beside them. It helped sometimes, she had found, to let the people talk and just listen. Other times, silence was best. Few talked right now, so she could hear Findekano near the front, doing his best to cheer a Vanyarin mother whose oldest had drowned not long ago.

Long hours passed with nothing to mark them, and they came to a patch of dark, shining ice that reflected the starlight high above. They had discovered that, more often than not, a section of ice like that was too thin to cross on foot, but this one stretched as far as any of them could see, so they slowed, taking the ice alone or in pairs.

It worked, for a time. They were nearly all of them safe on the other side when Elenwe saw Itarille across, heart in her throat with each careful step towards safety her daughter took, and then gestured for the man with his sister to cross.

She heard the tell-tale low crackling sound that meant someone was about to fall through into the icy water, and then it would be too late to save them. She didn’t think, just darted forward and pushed the man out of danger. Findekano grabbed him and pulled him onto thicker ice and Elenwe smiled. Then she hit icy water and she couldn’t breathe.

She heard Turukano scream, and reached for his outstretched hand. It was too far, and Elenwe couldn’t hold her breath any longer. She gasped, and cold water rushed agonizing down her throat. Her lungs seized and the cold began to fade along with her vision, going grey and fuzzy at the edges. The grey crept in, blocking out the stars, and Elenwe felt her body go slack.


End file.
